Kaiser Health News:
Medicaid Nearing ‘Eye Of The Storm’ As Newly Unemployed Look For Coverage
As the coronavirus roils the economy and throws millions of Americans out of work, Medicaid is emerging as a default insurance plan for many of the newly unemployed. That could produce unprecedented strains on the vital health insurance program, according to state officials and policy researchers. Americans are being urged to stay home and practice “social distancing” to prevent the spread of the virus, causing businesses to shutter their doors and lay off workers. (Luthra, Galewitz and Bluth, 4/3)

Kaiser Health News:
As The Country Disinfects, Diabetes Patients Can’t Find Rubbing Alcohol
While the masses hunt for toilet paper, Caroline Gregory and other people with diabetes are on a different mission: scouring stores for the rubbing alcohol or alcohol swabs needed to manage their disease. Gregory stopped in Carlie C’s, Dollar General and then Harris Teeter in Fayetteville, North Carolina, in pursuit of this vital component of her medical routine. “We’re all supposed to be staying at home, and I’m out going to 10 different stores,” said Gregory, 33, whose diabetes could heighten her risk for COVID-19 complications. “That’s also not safe.” (Weber, 4/3)

Kaiser Health News:
Pandemic-Stricken Cities Have Empty Hospitals, But Reopening Them Is Difficult
As city leaders across the country scramble to find space for the expected surge of COVID-19 patients, some are looking at a seemingly obvious choice: former hospital buildings, sitting empty, right downtown. In Philadelphia, New Orleans, and Los Angeles, where hospitalizations from COVID-19 increase each day, shuttered hospitals that once served the city’s poor and uninsured sit at the center of a public health crisis that begs for exactly what they can offer: more space. But reopening closed hospitals, even in a public health emergency, is difficult. (Feldman, 4/2)

Kaiser Health News:
KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: All Coronavirus All The Time
The medical and economic needs laid bare by the coronavirus pandemic are forcing some immediate changes to the U.S. health system. Congress, in its latest relief bill, provided $100 billion in funding for the hospital industry alone. Meanwhile, the federal government has quickly removed previous barriers to telehealth and other sometimes controversial practices. But big fights are still brewing, including whether the federal government will reopen the Affordable Care Act marketplaces it runs and whether states can use emergency powers to ban abortions as “elective medical procedures.” (4/2)

Reuters:
Global Coronavirus Cases Surpass One Million
Global coronavirus cases surpassed 1 million on Thursday with more than 52,000 deaths as the pandemic further exploded in the United States and the death toll climbed in Spain and Italy, according to a Reuters tally of official data. Italy had the most deaths, more than 13,900, followed by Spain. The United States had the most confirmed cases of any country, more than 240,000, the data showed. Since the virus was first recorded in China late last year, the pandemic has spread around the world, prompting governments to close businesses, ground airlines and order hundreds of millions of people to stay at home to try to slow the contagion. (Shumaker and Wallis, 4/2)

The Wall Street Journal:
Global Coronavirus Cases Top One Million, As Economic Toll Mounts
The U.S. has 236,339 reported cases of the virus, representing just under a quarter of the world-wide figures. That’s nearly twice the number of reported cases in Italy, the next-highest country, although the rates of illness and death might be underreported there and in other countries. Health experts in the U.S. have voiced concerns about the accuracy of coronavirus testing, believing nearly one in three infected with the illness is testing negative. Between 8 p.m. Wednesday and the same time Thursday, 850 people in the U.S. died from Covid-19, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University, bringing the nation’s total to more than 5,900. (Calfas, Dvorak and El-Fekki, 4/2)

The Associated Press:
Confirmed Coronavirus Cases Hit 1 Million Worldwide
The figures were another bleak milestone in the pandemic that has forced the lockdown of entire countries and brought economies to a shuddering halt. Still, the true numbers of deaths and infections are believed to be much higher, in part because of differences in counting practices, many mild cases that have gone unreported, testing shortages, and suspicions of a cover-up in some countries. (4/2)

The Washington Post:
Experts And Trump’s Advisers Doubt White House’s 240,000 Coronavirus Deaths Estimate
Leading disease forecasters, whose research the White House used to conclude 100,000 to 240,000 people will die nationwide from the coronavirus, were mystified when they saw the administration’s projection this week. The experts said they don’t challenge the numbers’ validity but that they don’t know how the White House arrived at them. White House officials have refused to explain how they generated the figure — a death toll bigger than the United States suffered in the Vietnam War or the 9/11 terrorist attacks. (Wan, Dawsey, Parker and Achenbach, 4/2)

Politico:
Inside The National Security Council, A Rising Sense Of Dread
On the second day in January, as a mysterious pathogen was infecting its way across China, Dr. Robert Redfield contacted the National Security Council. The U.S. government had unconfirmed information about what they believed to be a novel coronavirus, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Better pay attention. (Lippman and McGraw, 4/2)

Los Angeles Times:
Trump Ended Coronavirus Detection Pandemic Program
Two months before the novel coronavirus is thought to have begun its deadly advance in Wuhan, China, the Trump administration ended a $200-million pandemic early-warning program aimed at training scientists in China and other countries to detect and respond to such a threat. The project, launched by the U.S. Agency for International Development in 2009, identified 1,200 different viruses that had the potential to erupt into pandemics, including more than 160 novel coronaviruses. The initiative, called PREDICT, also trained and supported staff in 60 foreign laboratories — including the Wuhan lab that identified SARS-CoV-2, the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19. (Baumgaertner and Rainey, 4/2)

Politico:
Trump Team Reaches Into Presidential History For A Historic Crisis
When the avian flu first spread to pockets of Southeast Asia in 2005, President George W. Bush reassured Americans he would be prepared if the viral infection reached the United States. “I have thought through the scenarios of what an avian flu outbreak could mean,” Bush informed the public at a news conference in the White House Rose Garden that October, noting his recent dive into a book on pandemics. (Orr, 4/3)

The Wall Street Journal:
Trump Invokes Korean War-Era Law To Get Ventilators Built Amid Short Supply
President Trump invoked a Korean War-era law to help manufacturers secure supplies needed to make ventilators and protective face masks, as the federal stockpile of the medical devices was running dangerously low amid the coronavirus pandemic. Mr. Trump used the Defense Production Act in an effort to address the surging levels of patients in particularly hard-hit metro areas such as New York, New Orleans and Detroit. The federal government has distributed roughly half of its ventilators, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal, and has fewer than 10,000 still in hand—as the nation is projected to need tens of thousands more in the next weeks ahead. (Levy and Leary, 4/2)

Reuters:
Trump Invokes Defense Production Act For Ventilator Manufacturing
Lawmakers have clamored for Trump to invoke the act to end or at least reduce the country’s yawning shortage of ventilators. Because the fast-spreading coronavirus is a respiratory disease, the need for ventilators is multiplying by the hundreds each day. On Thursday Johns Hopkins University said more than 1 million people around the world currently have the coronavirus. State officials and health experts said the United States will ultimately need tens of thousands of additional ventilators. (4/2)

The Associated Press:
States Demand Ventilators As Feds Ration Limited Supply
Two weeks ago, the Pentagon promised to make as many as 2,000 military ventilators available as the federal government strains to contend with the coronavirus pandemic. As of Wednesday, less than half had been allocated, despite a desperate need across the country. At the Federal Emergency Management Agency, tasked with coordinating the federal response to the outbreak, about 9,000 additional ventilators are also on hold as officials seek to determine where they are needed most urgently. (Alonso-Zaldivar, Burns and Fox, 4/3)

The Wall Street Journal:
New York Gets Creative In Search For Ventilators
New York state will finance companies willing to manufacture ventilators and other needed medical supplies, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said, as reported cases of the coronavirus continued to grow. The state has enough ventilators in its stockpile for the next six days at hospitals’ current rate of use, Mr. Cuomo said Thursday. At least 400 ventilators were sent Wednesday night to New York City public hospitals. “We’re not asking for a favor from these businesses,” the governor said at a press conference. Companies and manufacturers who need financial help to convert factories for such work can get help from the state’s economic development agency, he said. (Honan and DeAvila, 4/2)

The New York Times:
Essential Drug Supplies For Virus Patients Are Running Low
Across the country, as hospitals confront a harrowing surge in coronavirus cases, they are also beginning to report shortages of critical medications — especially those desperately needed to ease the disease’s assault on patients’ respiratory systems. The most commonly reported shortages include drugs that are used to keep patients’ airways open, antibiotics, antivirals and sedatives. They are all part of a standard cocktail of medications that help patients on mechanical ventilators, control secondary lung infections, reduce fevers, manage pain and resuscitate those who go into cardiac arrest. (Sheikh, 4/2)

The New York Times:
USNS Comfort Hospital Ship Was Supposed To Aid New York. It Has 3 Patients.
Such were the expectations for the Navy hospital ship U.S.N.S. Comfort that when it chugged into New York Harbor this week, throngs of people, momentarily forgetting the strictures of social distancing, crammed together along Manhattan’s west side to catch a glimpse. On Thursday, though, the huge white vessel, which officials had promised would bring succor to a city on the brink, sat mostly empty, infuriating executives at local hospitals. The ship’s 1,000 beds are largely unused, its 1,200-member crew mostly idle. Only 20 patients had been transferred to the ship, officials said, even as New York hospitals struggled to find space for the thousands infected with the coronavirus. Another Navy hospital ship, the U.S.N.S. Mercy, docked in Los Angeles, has had a total of 15 patients, officials said. (Schwirtz, 4/2)

The New York Times:
Cuomo Emerges As ‘Trump Whisperer’ During Coronavirus Crisis
For Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, it should have been a softball question lobbed from a friendly source. The governor’s brother, Chris Cuomo, the CNN anchor, asked what he thought of President Trump’s repeated insinuation that health care workers in New York City were stealing medical supplies from hospitals by taking them “out the back door.” But Governor Cuomo did not take the bait.“It’s a very vague thing,” the governor said. “It went out the back door? I don’t know what that means.” (McKinley, 4/3)

The Washington Post:
Inside America’s Mask Crunch: A Slow Government Reaction And An Industry Wary Of Liability
On March 5, as the deadly novel coronavirus was racing through the United States, Vice President Pence paid a visit to the Minnesota headquarters of 3M, the manufacturing giant that produces protective respiratory masks. Pence, who leads the White House’s coronavirus task force, praised the company during a public roundtable for deciding at the outset of the crisis “to go to full capacity” and ramp up production of high-grade N95 masks. With its factories in South Dakota and Nebraska cranked up and running around the clock, 3M was on pace to double its global output to nearly 100 million a month, according to the company. (Whalen, Helderman and Hamburger, 4/2)

The Wall Street Journal:
3M CEO On N95 Masks: ‘Demand Exceeds Our Production Capacity’
American manufacturers say it will be months before they meet demand for high-quality masks, part of a broader breakdown in the effort to supply enough protective gear and lifesaving equipment to fight the coronavirus pandemic. 3M Co. and a half dozen smaller competitors are making about 50 million of N95 masks—which block 95% of very small particles—in the U.S. each month. That is far short of the 300 million N95 masks the Department of Health and Human Services estimated in March that U.S. health-care workers would need monthly to fight a pandemic. (Hufford, 4/2)

The New York Times:
The Masks Were Seized In A Price-Gouging Investigation. Now They’ll Go To Medical Workers.
Hundreds of thousands of masks that were seized this week from a Brooklyn man who was charged with lying to federal agents about price-gouging will go to medical workers in New York and New Jersey, the authorities said Thursday. The need for masks and personal protective equipment, known as PPE, is acute in the New York metropolitan region, an epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States. The stockpile of supplies that were seized included 192,000 N95 respirators, 130,000 surgical masks and nearly 600,000 medical grade gloves, the authorities said. (Vigdor, 4/2)

The Wall Street Journal:
A Million N95 Masks Are Coming From China—On Board The New England Patriots’ Plane
At 3:38 a.m. Wednesday morning, the New England Patriots’ team plane departed from an unusual locale: Shenzhen, China. On board the Boeing 767, in the cargo hold that used to be home to Tom Brady’s duffel bags, were 1.2 million N95 masks bound for the U.S. Video and pictures of the event show workers in masks and full-body suits at Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport loading box after box of the scarce and valuable personal protective equipment onto a red, white and blue plane emblazoned with the Patriots logo and “6X CHAMPIONS.” (Beaton, 4/2)

Politico:
Piecemeal Testing Flusters Officials Tracking Coronavirus Pandemic
The surge in coronavirus testing was supposed to give public health officials a better grip on who’s sick and where. Instead, it’s exposing gaps in reporting, raising concern about whether complete results and basic information about patients that test positive is getting through to officials and health workers trying to contain the pandemic. A hodgepodge of federal and state mandates on big commercial labs like Quest Diagnostics and others running tests have created reporting holes, even as about 100,000 are processed daily. (Tahir, 4/2)

Politico:
Indian Health Service, Rural Areas To Have Priority Access To Rapid Coronavirus Tests
Rapid point-of-care coronavirus tests will be used to support areas of the country with the least access to testing, as well as nursing homes, White House coronavirus coordinator Deborah Birx told reporters today. “These are new tests, and we have prioritized the groups that we think have the least access to testing now,” Birx said. Priority will be given to the Indian Health Service and rural areas that do not have access to labs that perform high-volume coronavirus tests, she said. (Lim, 4/2)

The New York Times:
From Afar, Congress Moves To Oversee Trump Coronavirus Response
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, moving aggressively to scrutinize the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, said Thursday that she would seek to create a special bipartisan committee to oversee all aspects of the government’s response, including how it distributes more than $2 trillion in emergency aid. The announcement, which drew immediate objections from President Trump and the top House Republican, came as leaders were struggling to determine how Congress could perform its most basic functions — both legislating and acting as a check on a president who has consistently stonewalled attempts at oversight — when lawmakers were scattered around the country with the Capitol shuttered. (Stolberg and Fandos, 4/2)

The Wall Street Journal:
Pelosi To Form Committee To Track Coronavirus Response, $2 Trillion Stimulus
Mrs. Pelosi on Thursday said Democratic Whip Jim Clyburn of South Carolina would lead the panel, which will have subpoena power. The committee, which Mrs. Pelosi hopes will include Republicans, will also press the government to use the latest science in its continued response. The speaker didn’t name all of the lawmakers who will be on the committee. “This is not an investigation of the administration,” the California Democrat told reporters in a conference call. “We want to be sure that there are not exploiters out there…where there’s money, there is also frequently mischief.” (Andrews, 4/2)

The Associated Press:
In Time Of Crisis, Trump-Pelosi Relationship Remains Broken
Two of the most powerful people in Washington have not spoken in five months at a time when the nation is battling its worst health crisis in a century, one that has already killed more than 5,000 Americans and put 10 million others out of work. President Donald Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last talked on Oct. 16, when Pelosi pointed her finger at the seated president during a heated exchange in a White House meeting that was captured in a widely shared photograph. (Lemire and Kellman, 4/3)

The New York Times:
A Widening Toll On Jobs: ‘This Thing Is Going To Come For Us All’
A staggering 6.6 million people applied for unemployment benefits last week as the coronavirus outbreak ravaged nearly every corner of the American economy, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The speed and scale of the job losses are without precedent. In just two weeks, the pandemic has left nearly 10 million Americans out of work, more than in the worst months of the last recession. Until last month, the worst week for unemployment filings was 695,000 in 1982. “What usually takes months or quarters to happen in a recession is happening in a matter of weeks,” said Michelle Meyer, chief U.S. economist for Bank of America Merrill Lynch. (Casselman and Cohen, 4/2)

The New York Times:
The Unemployment Rate Is Probably Around 13 Percent
The jobless rate today is almost certainly higher than at any point since the Great Depression. We think it’s around 13 percent and rising at a speed unmatched in American history. The labor market is changing so fast that our official statistics — intended to measure changes over months and years rather than days or weeks — can’t really keep up. But a few simple calculations can help piece together a reasonable approximation. (Wolfers, 4/3)

Politico:
’No Words For This’: 10 Million Workers File Jobless Claims In Just Two Weeks
Unemployment claims soared to a record-smashing 6.6 million last week, the Labor Department reported, more than double the previous week, signaling more economic pain from the coronavirus pandemic. The rush to claim unemployment benefits occurred as the number of people testing positive for the coronavirus rose above 200,000 and government measures to contain the epidemic shut down increasing swaths of the U.S. economy, with residents in 37 states now ordered to stay at home. (Rainey and McCaskill, 4/2)

USA Today:
Coronavirus Put Millions Out Of Work: How To Get Health Coverage
President Donald Trump said "it doesn't seem fair" people at a certain income level can't get Medicaid, but he doesn't plan to open a "special enrollment period" that would help people who lost jobs because of the coronavirus sign up for their health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. What should a person suddenly jobless and without health care benefits do? And how can the administration prevent another health crisis within the pandemic? (O'Donnell and Alltucker, 4/2)

The Associated Press:
You've Just Lost Your Job? Here's What You Need To Know
Nearly 10 million Americans have lost their jobs and applied for unemployment benefits in the past two weeks — a stunning record high that reflects the near-complete shutdown of the U.S. economy. Job losses related to the coronavirus are sure to rise further in coming weeks, with economists saying the U.S. unemployment rate could reach as high as 15%, well above the 10% peak during the Great Recession. As recently as February, the unemployment rate was just 3.5%, a 50-year low. (Rugaber and Sell, 4/2)

The Wall Street Journal:
Mortgage Relief From Coronavirus Crisis Is Off To Rocky Start
Struggling homeowners are flooding their mortgage companies with requests for help as the coronavirus pandemic wrecks the economy. Many are having a hard time getting it. Homeowners say they are waiting hours on the phone just to reach a real person. When they do, some are told that getting an answer could take weeks. That is a troublesome timeline for the many borrowers whose mortgage payments are due in the first half of April. (McCaffrey and Ackerman, 4/3)

Reuters:
U.S. Navy Relieves Aircraft Carrier Commander Who Wrote Letter Urging Coronavirus Action
The U.S. Navy relieved the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt’s captain of his command on Thursday, punishing him for the leak of a scathing letter he sent to superiors that sought stronger measures for curbing a coronavirus outbreak aboard the ship. The removal of Captain Brett Crozier, first reported by Reuters, was announced by acting U.S. Navy Secretary Thomas Modly, who said the senior officer of the nuclear-powered vessel of 5,000 crew members had exercised poor judgment in the way he “broadly” distributed his letter. (Ali and Stewart, 4/2)

The Wall Street Journal:
Sailors Start To Leave Coronavirus-Stricken U.S. Aircraft Carrier
Some crew members of a coronavirus-stricken American aircraft carrier have been moved to hotels in the U.S. territory of Guam, where they will be quarantined for 14 days, a military official said Friday. At least 114 of the roughly 5,000 sailors on the USS Theodore Roosevelt have tested positive for Covid-19, the respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus. The warship has been docked at a Guam port for more than a week, and about a third of its crew has been tested for the virus. (Craymer, 4/3)

Stat:
Amid Coronavirus, White House Set To Recommend Wearing Cloth Masks
In a draft document obtained by STAT, the CDC recommended that the public use homemade face coverings when in public, reserving higher-grade protective equipment like N95 masks for hospitals and health care workers, who have faced severe shortages in personal protective equipment as the coronavirus pandemic has accelerated through the United States. Such face coverings, according to the draft guidance, would not be intended to protect the wearer, but rather prevent the wearer from unknowingly spreading the disease when in public. (Facher, 4/2)

The Wall Street Journal:
What Are The Benefits Of Wearing A Face Mask?
To wear a face mask or not? The advice has been confusing. In China, Hong Kong, and Singapore, the general public has been encouraged to wear masks to prevent getting or spreading the novel coronavirus. But the World Health Organization only recommends wearing a mask if you’re taking care of a person suspected of having the virus. (Reddy, 4/2)

Reuters:
Do Social Distancing Better, White House Doctor Tells Americans. Trump Objects
Dr. Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the White House task force on the coronavirus, had a message for Americans on Thursday: do better at social distancing. President Donald Trump didn’t like the message. At what has become a daily briefing by the president and his advisers, Birx, a highly respected expert in global health, has served the role of explainer, walking journalists and the public through the data behind federal recommendations designed to slow the virus’s spread. (Mason, 4/2)

The Wall Street Journal:
Google Offers User Location Data To Health Officials Tackling Coronavirus
Google will help public health officials use its vast storage of data to track people’s movements amid the coronavirus pandemic, in what the company called an effort to assist in “unprecedented times.” The initiative, announced by the company late Thursday, uses a portion of the information that the search giant has collected on users, including through Google Maps, to create reports on the degree to which locales are abiding by social-distancing measures. The “mobility reports” will be posted publicly and show, for instance, whether particular localities, states or countries are seeing more or less people flow into shops, grocery stores, pharmacies and parks. (Copeland, 4/3)

Politico:
Google Wielding Its Vast Troves Of Phone-Tracking Data In Virus Fight
The announcement marks the most public acknowledgment yet of the role that data on people's movements — derived from smartphones — is playing in the U.S. public health response to the virus outbreak. Countries in Europe and Asia have more openly wielded data from phones and mobile apps in their efforts to stem the spread of the illness, which has infected more than 1 million people worldwide. Google's report will show how foot traffic has increased or declined to six types of destinations: homes, workplaces, retail and recreation establishments, parks, grocery stores and pharmacies, and transit stations. (Overly, 4/3)

The Wall Street Journal:
U.S. And Europe Turn To Phone-Tracking Strategies To Halt Spread Of Coronavirus
Western governments aiming to relax restrictions on movement are turning to unprecedented surveillance to track people infected with the new coronavirus and identify those with whom they have been in contact. Governments in China, Singapore, Israel and South Korea that are already using such data credit the practice with helping slow the spread of the virus. The U.S. and European nations, which have often been more protective of citizens’ data than those countries, are now looking at a similar approach, using apps and cellphone data. (Marson, Stupp and Hinshaw, 4/3)

The New York Times:
How Fast The Coronavirus Outbreak Is Growing In Hundreds Of U.S. Communities
The New York metropolitan area has become the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic. But growth in cases and deaths also continues in other parts of the United States, including large metros like New Orleans and Detroit, and some smaller ones like Albany, Ga., where a large funeral apparently seeded many cases. If current patterns hold, several communities are on track to have epidemics as serious as New York’s. (Katz, Quealy and Sanger-Katz, 4/3)

The New York Times:
Where America Didn’t Stay Home Even As The Virus Spread
Stay-at-home orders have nearly halted travel for most Americans, but people in Florida, the Southeast and other places that waited to enact such orders have continued to travel widely, potentially exposing more people as the coronavirus outbreak accelerates, according to an analysis of cellphone location data by The New York Times. The divide in travel patterns, based on anonymous cellphone data from 15 million people, suggests that Americans in wide swaths of the West, Northeast and Midwest have complied with orders from state and local officials to stay home. (4/2)

The Washington Post:
Coronavirus Surges In Florida; Stay-At-Home Order May Be Too Late
Slowly and reluctantly over the past month, as coronavirus infections grew from almost none to nearly 8,000 and more than 125 residents have died, Florida has sobered up. Under mounting pressure, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) this week ordered most Floridians to remain at home starting Friday, a move that more than 30 U.S. states had already taken in an effort to slow the spread of a deadly viral infection with no vaccine and no cure. But as case counts climb in the nation’s third most-populous state — one home to bustling international airports, swarms of tourists and many vulnerable residents — many are now left to wait and wonder if the latest restrictions came in time, and what lies ahead for the Sunshine State. (Wootson, Rozsa and Dennis, 4/2)

The New York Times:
Location Data Says It All: Staying At Home During Coronavirus Is A Luxury
It has been about two weeks since the Illinois governor ordered residents to stay at home, but nothing has changed about Adarra Benjamin’s responsibilities. She gets on a bus nearly every morning in Chicago, traveling 20 miles round trip some days to cook, clean and shop for her clients, who are older or have health problems that make such tasks difficult. Ms. Benjamin knows the dangers, but she needs her job, which pays about $13 an hour. She also cannot imagine leaving her clients to fend for themselves. “They’ve become my family,” she said. (Valentino-DeVries, Lu and Dance, 4/3)

The New York Times:
Cities That Went All In On Social Distancing In 1918 Emerged Stronger For It
As the first local influenza deaths were counted in the fall of 1918, officials in Minneapolis moved quickly — more aggressively than even state health officials thought was wise — and shut down the city. They closed schools, churches, theaters and pool halls, effective midnight on Oct. 12. Across the Mississippi River, St. Paul remained largely open into November, with its leaders confident they had the epidemic under control. Fully three weeks after Minneapolis — with The St. Paul Pioneer Press pleading “In Heaven’s Name Do Something!” — St. Paul ordered sweeping closures, too. (Badger and Bui, 4/3)

Stat:
Americans Are Underestimating Duration Of Coronavirus Crisis, Experts Say
Public health experts are increasingly worried that Americans are underestimating how long the coronavirus pandemic will disrupt everyday life in the country, warning that the Trump administration’s timelines are offering many a false sense of comfort. Coronavirus cases are expected to peak in mid-April in many parts of the country, but quickly reopening businesses or loosening shelter-in-place rules would inevitably lead to a new surge of infections, they said. (Branswell, 4/3)

The New York Times:
F.D.A. Approves First Coronavirus Antibody Test In U.S.
The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved a new test for coronavirus antibodies, the first for use in the United States. Currently available tests are designed to find fragments of viral genes indicating an ongoing infection. Doctors swab the nose and throat, and amplify any genetic material from the virus found there. The new test, by contrast, looks for protective antibodies in a finger prick of blood. It tells doctors whether a patient has ever been exposed to the virus and now may have some immunity. (Mandavilli, 4/2)

The New York Times:
Unproven Stem Cell Therapy Gets OK For Testing In Coronavirus Patients
An experimental stem cell therapy derived from human placentas will begin early testing in patients with the coronavirus, a New Jersey biotech company said Thursday. The treatment, being developed by the company Celularity, has not yet been used on any patients with symptoms of Covid-19, but it has caught the attention of Rudy Giuliani, President Trump’s personal lawyer. Mr. Giuliani recently featured an interview with the company founder on his website and said on Twitter that the product has “real potential,” while also criticizing the Food and Drug Administration for not moving more quickly to approve potential remedies. (Thomas, 4/2)

The Associated Press:
Coronavirus Survivor: 'In My Blood, There May Be Answers'
Tiffany Pinckney remembers the fear when COVID-19 stole her breath. So when she recovered, the New York City mother became one of the country’s first survivors to donate her blood to help treat other seriously ill patients. “It is definitely overwhelming to know that in my blood, there may be answers,” Pinckney told The Associated Press. Doctors around the world are dusting off a century-old treatment for infections: Infusions of blood plasma teeming with immune molecules that helped survivors beat the new coronavirus. (Neergaard and Ritzel, 4/3)

The Wall Street Journal:
Democratic National Convention To Be Postponed Until Mid-August
This summer’s Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee is being pushed back to mid-August because of the coronavirus pandemic, the biggest disruption yet to the presidential campaign as a result of the crisis. The gathering will now take place during the week of Aug. 17, the Democratic National Committee said. That delays by about a month the date when the party’s eventual nominee can start using general election dollars to directly confront President Trump. (McCormick and Thomas, 4/2)

The New York Times:
How Tech’s Lobbyists Are Using The Pandemic To Make Gains
Last month, lobbying groups representing advertising giants like Google and Facebook asked California’s attorney general to wait to enforce the state’s new online privacy rules given the coronavirus ripping around the world. In Washington, lobbyists representing cloud computing giants like Amazon pushed for more money to help federal employees work remotely. And Uber began reframing a longtime campaign to avoid classifying its drivers as full-time employees through the urgency of a mounting public health crisis. (McCabe, 4/3)

The New York Times:
C.I.A. Hunts For Authentic Virus Totals In China, Dismissing Government Tallies
The C.I.A. has been warning the White House since at least early February that China has vastly understated its coronavirus infections and that its count could not be relied upon as the United States compiles predictive models to fight the virus, according to current and former intelligence officials. The intelligence briefings in recent weeks, based at least in part on information from C.I.A. assets in China, played an important role in President Trump’s negotiation on Thursday of an apparent détente with President Xi Jinping of China. Since then, both countries have ratcheted back criticism of each other. (Barnes, 4/2)

The New York Times:
Peaks, Testing, Lockdowns: How Coronavirus Vocabulary Causes Confusion
Making sense of the coronavirus pandemic requires getting up to speed on semantics as much as epidemiology. Government officials and health-care professionals toss off mentions of mortality rates, flattening the curve and lockdowns, assuming that we know what they mean. But the terms mean different things from country to country, state to state, even city to city and person to person. Officials use the same phrases about mass testing, caseloads and deaths to describe very different situations. (Perez-Pena, 4/3)

The New York Times:
Bad News Wrapped In Protein: Inside The Coronavirus Genome
A virus is “simply a piece of bad news wrapped up in protein,” the biologists Jean and Peter Medawar wrote in 1977.In January, scientists deciphered a piece of very bad news: the genome of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. The sample came from a 41-year-old man who worked at the seafood market in Wuhan where the first cluster of cases appeared. Researchers are now racing to make sense of this viral recipe, which could inspire drugs, vaccines and other tools to fight the ongoing pandemic. (Corum and Zimmer, 4/3)

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